A Grave for Lassiter

by Loren Zane Grey

  “A lot to show off, believe me.” He kissed her lightly, which caused her to blush.

  “But only you will ever see what I’ve really got to show off.” A new wickedness flashed into her gray eyes and she laughed and hugged his arm. “Oh, Lassiter, you’ve been so good for me.”

  “You sew up that Dingell contract and it’ll please your Uncle Herm when he gets here. . . .”

  “If he ever does.” Her face fell. She looked up into Lassiter’s dark face, at the abrasions that were nearly gone, the lips that had been so horribly mashed but were now almost back to normal. He’d have scars from the historic brawl to carry to his grave, but those that showed were minor. “I could never make it without you, Lassiter,” she said fervently.

  Her words made him feel uncomfortable, for they alluded to a longtime commitment.

  Lassiter went to get the buckboard. The light wagon that Vanderson had used the day he took Melody to Bluegate had never been returned. By now he had probably sold it.

  They started out on a warm morning, Melody wearing a light coat over a yellow dress to keep off the dust. Set squarely on her pinned-up golden hair was a bonnet with a small feather that was only a slightly darker shade than her dress.

  In the war, Bert Oliver had ridden shotgun for a mail wagon in the Confederate Army, but today he was doing it for the couple in the Northguard buckboard.

  Mostly that morning on the long drive, Melody talked of plans for the future, her voice warm. She hoped they could take some of the money from the Dingell business, if they were lucky enough to get it, and build a house at Aspen Creek.

  “Better yet,” Lassiter cut in coldly, “take back the house your Uncle Josh built in Bluegate.”

  “But Farrell owns it now,” she exclaimed, turning in the wagon seat to squint at him against the sun.

  “Farrell stole it, you mean.”

  She gave a little sigh and threw the coat off her shoulders, for the day was warming. She pushed up the sleeves of the dress. Her forearms were smooth and round. When he thought of them crossed at his back, he grew tense. The road here cut through a heavy stand of pines like a twisting snake, to avoid outcroppings and the shoulders of the many hills. Off the road there was plenty of seclusion. The back of his neck grew warm when thinking of them together in the shade of those tall pines. If only Bert Oliver wasn’t plodding along behind the wagon on his gray horse. Well, it was his own fault for insisting the southerner accompany them. He had wanted someone at his back in case they ran into trouble. And it was just as well, he reminded himself as he began to calm. One less memory for them both to digest before the inevitable parting.

  Soon they were approaching the road that led to Dingell’s mine that dead ended at the big warehouse Josh Falconer had built and which was now owned by Farrell. Melody must have been thinking of it because she spoke of the hectic period when Lassiter was presumed to be in his grave.

  “Farrell kept putting papers in front of me and I foolishly signed my name,” she said, a note of despondency in her voice. “But I trusted him.” Her voice tightened. “I hadn’t realized what a snake he is.”

  “And with Vance Vanderson buzzing in your ear it only made the world even more confusing.”

  “Don’t you worry about him, my darling.” She gripped his right wrist with her two hands. She had surprisingly strong fingers for one so young. “I intend to divorce him. And I don’t care if every woman in the county snubs me because of it. I can hold my head up with you at my side.”

  He made a left turn where the Black Arrow Mine road ended only forty feet or so from the north wall of the warehouse. Glancing at the sprawling structure, Lassiter found it hard to imagine it jammed with a bloodthirsty crowd, most of whom had come to see a battle to the death. Even he had to admit that with two men against one, it was a miracle he had survived.

  The mine road began to climb abruptly. It was narrow and straight as a string up the mountain, to where the mine was a mere dot in the distance.

  A hundred yards from the warehouse, a creek that paralleled the road all the way from the mine made a sweeping right angle to drop over a low granite cliff and spill into a narrow valley.

  From what he had heard, Lassiter could believe that cloudbursts in the mountains above the mine could turn the creek as well as the road itself into a raging river. He was beginning to see evidence of the last storm that had washed around large rocks to expose them for as much as ten inches in places above the normal roadbed. It made the uphill climb even harder. Shod hooves and wheel rims clattered over the stretches of bare rock.

  “You coming all right, Bert?” Lassiter called back.

  “The road to hell couldn’t be much worse’n this one.”

  “This road’ll be rough on the wagons,” Lassiter mused as the buckboard wheels dipped into the wide depression dug by the creek where it made its sweeping turn. Wheels rattled over rocks and dripped water as he urged the team up a steep bank and onto the road once again. At times the buckboard tilted sickeningly when encountering a higher ledge of exposed stone. Melody hung on gamely to a seat brace and did not cry out.

  At last they reached the mine entrance. Lassiter hopped down and helped Melody out of the wagon. She kept her face close to his, her feet swinging in the air as he spun her around and set her down.

  “On the way back,” she whispered. “Oh, if Bert Oliver wasn’t along.” She gave him a wicked smile.

  Lassiter tied the team to a stump near the edge of a great pile of tailings. Oliver dismounted and stretched his long bony arms. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll water the hosses.”

  Taking Melody’s hand, Lassiter climbed with her up a path through the tailings and to a long platform, the length of two freight wagons. Just down from the mine tunnel was a rather large lean-to built against the side of the mountain. Lassiter walked down, but there was no one inside.

  It took five minutes or so, calling into the maw of the mine tunnel before Brad Dingell finally shouted, “Coming,” his voice faint in the distance.

  While waiting for Dingell to appear, they looked around. From this elevation, Bluegate, spread out below, looked like a child’s miniature city. The people scurrying about were mere dots. Smoke from many chimneys spread a faint haze over the diminutive buildings.

  “Looks like an ant hill from here,” Melody said.

  “Remember your speech now,” Lassiter reminded. “I’ll let you handle everything.” They had gone over what she was supposed to say to Dingell.

  “But I want you to help me. . . .”

  “Show Dingell how smart you are. I think it’s important.”

  “But why?”

  “There’s enough sour talk about a woman running a freight line. Show ’em you can do it, Melody.”

  By then they could hear Dingell’s footsteps echoing from the tunnel.

  When Dingell appeared and saw Melody, he flushed with embarrassment at his appearance. He wore work clothes and he needed a shave. A smudge of dirt was on one cheek.

  “If I’d known a pretty lady was calling on me I’d have spruced up.” He and Lassiter shook hands. “Where’d you two disappear to at the dance?”

  “We had a long ride ahead of us,” was all Lassiter said on the subject.

  “Reckon you’re here about the freight contract,” he said slyly.

  “Melody Vanderson has all the details,” Lassiter said.

  “If I may be so bold as to compliment you, ma’am, that’s a purty dress. Mighty purty.”

  Melody thanked him, flushing slightly at the compliment.

  “I’d ask you inside,” Dingell waved a square hand toward the lean-to. “But it’s a boar’s nest.”

  “Bachelor quarters usually are,” Melody said with a warm smile.

  Dingell laughed. He was shorter than Lassiter by an inch, with broad shoulders and sturdy legs. He wore high-laced miner’s boots.

  Under an overhang was a table and benches where Dingell took his meals when the weather was decent, as he
put it. They sat in the shade. For a few moments Melody seemed ill at ease until Lassiter gave her a nudge. Then she handed Dingell a sheet of paper with their estimate of costs to haul the Black Arrow ore up to the stamp mill at Montclair. In a clear voice she explained how it would be cheaper than using the closer but steeper route to the Bitterroot Mine.

  He scanned the paper, but seemed more interested in Melody than the figures she had presented. Lassiter was faintly amused because Dingell was so obviously taken with Melody. Well, why not? he asked himself. And Melody apparently found him pleasant. In talking, they found they had something in common, for Dingell had lived in Westport, where Melody and her mother had lived for a time.

  “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders for a female,” Dingell said, “Not meanin’ any disrespect,” he added quickly. “But most of ’em are kinda light in the head. Ain’t that so, Lassiter?”

  But Lassiter only spread his hands; they could take from that any answer they wanted.

  Dingell insisted on fixing them a noon meal. Melody was agreeable. She seemed to be enjoying herself in the clear air, with the splendid view of Bluegate at the foot of the mountain. Lassiter called Bert Oliver to join them. He and Dingell shook hands.

  Dingell got a chunk of roast beef from a root cellar, sharpened a knife and sliced enough meat for sandwiches, then sliced what was left of a loaf of bread. Melody pitched in to help. She seemed relaxed around Dingell, which Lassiter took as a good sign.

  As they ate, Lassiter spoke of the mine road. “When the weather’s bad, there’ll be no chance to get wagons up here.”

  “Tell you how I figure to fix that. I got ore cars and tracks in the warehouse up at Montclair. You fetch the load for me. Then I’ll figure the right grade for a narrow gauge like they use in all mines. I’ll put tracks on that hill yonder.” He gestured to the left of the mine tunnel where the mountain made a gradual descent to the valley floor. “I’ll figure the grade just right so I can use switchbacks all the way down. The cars can drop their load of ore at the bottom where you can pick it up.”

  Lassiter said it sounded like a good idea.

  “I’ve had some experience surveying,” Dingell went on, “so I’ll lay out the tracks. They’ve got to be at just the right grade so they don’t get loose an’ make the cars derail.”

  “How will you get the empty cars back to the mine?” Melody asked.

  “A good question,” Dingell said approvingly. Each empty car would be brought back to the top by sheer manpower at the end of a long cable. “That is until I can get steam to turn a pulley. Main thing I’ll need is a boiler. You can haul that for me, too, Lassiter. There’s one for sale at Montclair and I’ll arrange to buy it by mail. Had a look at it last time I was up. If it isn’t sold, it’s a deal.”

  “We’ll make it up the mountain with the wagons,” Lassiter said, “until you can get tracks laid.”

  “Shouldn’t take more’n a few weeks.”

  They agreed that Northguard would pick up ore cars, tracks, and the boiler at Montclair, plus pulleys and cable. Lassiter estimated he could do the job with two wagons.

  A contract, which they all signed, was drawn up at the table.

  As they started back down the mountain, Melody was elated. “We did it, Lassiter.”

  “You mean you did,” he said with a grin.

  “Don’t be silly. You did most of it.”

  He wanted to change the subject. “I hope he’s enough of an engineer to figure out how to get those empty cars back up the mountain by cable. The switchbacks and all . . .”

  “Seems to me he’s quite a remarkable man. . . .”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lassiter was a little surprised to find a new railroad rep at Montclair. Ordway, the one who had tried to get Blackshear to arrest him, was gone. The new man was Regis Boshar, a husky mustached man of middle age.

  “We hope to do a lot of business with you, Lassiter.”

  “Business with Northguard you mean,” Lassiter said with a smile as they shook hands. “I’m only a small cog in the gears of the freight line.”

  Roustabouts from the warehouse helped load the cargo of steel rails, ore cars, and an ungainly mass of metal that was the steam boiler. In addition there was what seemed like miles of cable, and boxes and boxes of pulleys of all sizes. Plus the hardware needed to attach them to the many posts that would be needed for the long haul from the lower level up to the mine.

  On the return trip to Bluegate, Lassiter was constantly on his guard, riding his black horse ahead for a mile or so, then scouting their back trail. But nothing happened. He was as edgy as he had been on the last haul to Bitterroot. But nothing had happened on that trip, de spite his worry and vigilance. And when they were within five miles or so of Bluegate, he decided this trek would be equally uneventful.

  It was a clear day, the sun warm. Birds chattered in a thick grove of aspen that bordered each side of the road. Lassiter was riding twenty yards ahead of the lead wagon that Bert Oliver was driving. Sharing the seat with him was a swamper named Sid Hooper. The following wagon contained Alex Holmes and Steve Baron-ski. All good men that Lassiter felt he could depend on.

  Without warning there were rebel yells from the east side of the road and the sudden thunder of hoofbeats. A bunch of horses suddenly spurred into violent movement from a standstill.

  He barely had time to yank free his Henry rifle when riders swooped out of the woods. No Indian charge in history was more deadly than this. There were eight of them, firing from the backs of hard-running horses. Bullets peppered the sides of the lead wagon; the second wagon was being used as a flat bed to accommodate the bulky steam boiler. Bullets whanged into its metal sides and ricocheted. Rifle bullets threw gouts of dust into the air only an arm’s length from the forefeet of Lassiter’s plunging black horse as he swung the animal, at full gallop, into a widening curve.

  Lassiter was firing back, as were his men from the halted wagons. He felt a twinge of agony as Ed Kiley, in the lead of the attackers, knocked Sid Hooper tumbling from the lead wagon, rolling to the center of the road where he lay still. Oliver was firing a rifle as fast as he could work the loading lever.

  But it was Lassiter, closing fast on the hard-riding Kiley, who had the best chance of avenging the crumpled Hooper, now bleeding in the dust.

  Kiley, mounted on a big gray, tried to ram Lassiter’s smaller horse. But Lassiter’s superior horsemanship en abled his mount to evade the hard-driving gray. Turned as he was in the saddle, Lassiter felt something twitch the short hairs at the nape of his neck. A bullet from Kiley’s rifle had come that close to causing disaster for Lassiter. A split-second later came the roar of the big .50 caliber Sharps he was carrying.

  “Damn near gotcha!” Kiley yelled with a grin.

  Lassiter twisted in the saddle, swung back as Kiley was checking the speed of his gray horse. Around them was the sound of battle, the incessant rattle of rifle fire, yells, screams.

  Holding his rifle in one hand, Lassiter fired it like a pistol. Kiley, turning back, lost his grin. It was replaced by a spurt of blood as the bullet took out his front teeth and a portion of his skull, just above the back of the neck. He plunged from the horse in a loose-limbed roll, still holding onto the rifle as he struck the roadway, the barrel somehow tripping up the galloping gray horse, bringing it down. Above the roar of weapons came a clear, snapping sound as of a stick breaking. The gray’s neck snapped as it plunged to earth, the head twisted at an unusual angle. The left front wheel of Oliver’s wagon was less than inches from Kiley’s ruined skull. Everything had happened in the space of time no longer than it takes for a man to draw three good breaths.

  Out of the trees came the bearded Art Blackshear. Not on a horse but on solid ground, for better marksmanship than from the saddle of a plunging mount. His horse was running back into the trees.

  A bullet blew a faint breath against Lassiter’s right cheek as he jerked his head around. He saw the stock of a Winchester tuc
ked against Blackshear’s hairy cheek. Knowing he was too vulnerable against a marksman with bootheels anchored firmly on Mother Earth, he quit the saddle. He slid a few feet on his knees in deep grass as momentum carried him into a patch of wild flowers. Bullets flung bits of petals and stems into the air.

  “Stay still, so’s I can bust one into your gut!” Blackshear yelled. He was a little over ten feet away, teeth bared through the heavy beard. Before he could shift his position to cover up the fast-moving target, Lassiter shot him twice. Blackshear came up suddenly on his toes, eyes in the bearded face looking blank. He leaned far forward as if to kiss the ground. Which he did, literally, falling onto his face.

  Yelling encouragement to his men, Lassiter opened up on the remaining attackers. The remaining three members of his crew had taken cover behind the wagons, their fire so accurate that the attackers began to mill in confusion.

  Bert Oliver shot Jody Marsh near the Adam’s apple, which sent him tumbling backward off the rump of a roan. He struck the ground, arms and legs flopping as if barely fastened to his body. As he rolled, Oliver shot him a second time through the chest, just to make sure. Another attacker screamed and went down. That settled them. They went pounding back into the aspens that had given them their original cover.

  As the sound of hoofbeats began to fade, Lassiter reloaded his Henry rifle. His mouth was dry as he looked down at Ed Kiley, whose blasted skull was nearly under an iron wheel rim of the first wagon. He seized Kiley by the heels and pulled him from under the wagon. It took the four of them to pull the dead gray horse off the road so they could get by.

  Lassiter had skinned one knee when he made the fast dismount. He was limping slightly.

  Blackshear suddenly regained consciousness and began to scream, rolling about in the road, trying to stem a flow of blood with his two hands. But it trickled through his fingers and down onto his belt buckle.

  Marsh was dead, his mouth open. His eyes were also open. One of them was blotched by droppings from panicked birds still circling madly above the trees on either side of the road. A splattering bit of warmth that Marsh had never felt. There was no pity in Lassiter for any of the Farrell men. They had intended to murder his entire crew. As the last of the receding hoofbeats could no longer be heard and Blackshear had ceased to scream, there was a new sound arising in the eerie after-battle stillness.